Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

VERDICT:
2/10 Nuked Fridges

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is arguably the worst movie of 2008 and it currently holds the record for being the only time that I've ever felt bad about someone else paying for my movie ticket.

The movie follows Dr. Jones as he goes off to uncover a new archaeological discovery, only to end up finding an alien UFO while fighting off Nazis. Yup, that's what it's about.

Okay, here's a short list of my grievances against this horrible, horrible disappointment of a movie:

- Shia Lebouf is in it...as Indy's bastard son.

- Shia Lebouf swinging on vines with dozens of wild monkeys like a bizarro mixture of Tarzan and the Fonz.

- Shia Lebouf having a sword fight with head nazi Cate Blanchett...across two cars moving at full speed.

- Mutant fire ants.

- Aliens.

To add insult to injury, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has none of the signature charm or wit of the first three movies, not even in the character of Indiana Jones. By some horrible twist of fate, Indiana Jones has turned into a boring old fart who has completely lost his sense of humor. And unfortunately, the writers aren't entirely at fault for this either. Harrison Ford is the man and he always will be, but someone needs to send him the memo to stop doing action movies. It's been 12 years since Air Force One and you're not getting any more limber, Har. Time to pass the torch.

Another one of the big things that made the original trilogy so much fun was that they didn't rely on special effects to keep the audience amazed. It was just Indy whipping shit, running from boulders, and avoiding snakes. It wasn't exactly fancy or high-tech, but it was great and it was suspenseful as hell. Even though they're pretty and everything, all the special effects in Crystal Skull ultimately just take away from what made Indiana Jones so believable and exciting to begin with.

With all that aside, you can blame the writers for almost everything else. The dialogue is pathetic, the actors deliver their lines with a "Why am I doing this to my career?" demeanor, the plot is a shitty mess, and the whole thing is just boring. I'm not placing a whole lot of blame on Spielberg here, because he's also the man, but he should have known when to say when.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Go watch the first three Indy movies instead if you haven't seen them already. I hope to God that this has been enough to turn you away from seeing this bag of crap.